


Rewrite The Stars

by Stickyouinawormhole13



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, klangst, sorta???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:24:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stickyouinawormhole13/pseuds/Stickyouinawormhole13
Summary: Graduation is a blur of tears, unfound nostalgia, and fear. Four weeks later, so is Lance McClain’s funeral. Keith is confused on how to feel about his supposed rival's death. But when unknown feelings resurface, he decides to try and save Lance in some way by writing a letter ... addressed to himself.





	Rewrite The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Song: I’m Tired, You’re Lonely - Liza Anne
> 
>  
> 
> Why do i do this to myself. writing new stories asdfghjkl;'
> 
> based on the manga Orange.
> 
> and the song from greatest showman lmao <3 XD
> 
>  
> 
> also enjoy this really boring chapter >.>
> 
> WARNING: depictions of suicide

On the day Lance McClain tries to die, he thinks about the last time he talked to his friends. They had discussed Newton’s Law of Motion. There are three he can remember. He does not know why he thinks about these things at this moment, at this very high speed minute, but Lance thinks he just needed a distraction from the drum heavily beating in his ribcage. He turns up the radio station. It plays some kind of melancholic indie music. The rosary hanging on his rear mirror seems to mock him. He resists the urge to rip it off. Things don’t change just like God’s words and the bible verses. Things don’t go to plan. Things don’t change like the earth’s gravity or like misery, like pain. Nothing changes and it’s fucking bullshit and Lance is so sick of this. The constant of being so insignificant.

 

He controls his breathing, bites his fist, and tries to remember the Laws of Motion.

 

The first law states that a body at rest will remain at rest and a body in motion will remain in motion with a constant velocity unless acted upon by an exterior force.

 

Lance is driving his car at a very high speed and if he hits something, let’s say a tree, then the car will come to a stop, but he will keep moving forward. That’s what his father used to say, _Keep moving forward, Mijo. Things will become better._

 

But things did not get better, and that is why he now finds himself thinking about the Second Law of Motion.

 

The second law explains how the velocity of an object changes when it is subjected to an external force. The more mass the object has, the more potential energy has to be used to move it. **F=ma**. The more force, the more acceleration.

 

And so Lance pushes the pedal harder, not minding the speed meter to his right. The arrow is blurry because Lance has been crying for awhile now. The rims of his eyes are burning on the brink of tears, cheeks blotchy and red. _Push harder, everything will be good soon, just hang in there._

 

Third law is that for every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

 

He doesn’t care much about that, so he stops his thinking. Putting those first two laws into practice, he swerves his 1968 Mustang off the road.

 

...

 

As he lies down on the grass, shattered glass embedded into his skin, and blood around him, he looks up and sees the sky again. He cries again, again, and again. It’s really beautiful. The sky is lit up with a million stars. It reminds him of his sister’s paintings, white acrylic paint on a dark navy sky. She says his eyes are that of blue night sky. _Water doesn’t really have a color, it’s more of a reflection of the sky like some kind of huge mirror._ But he doesn’t see blue in the sky anymore, it’s pitch black scattered with small twinkling lights. It’s still beautiful, but he wishes that the ocean could have been the last thing he’d seen before everything fades to an even darker black.

 

Lance had forgotten how blue the ocean really was, and now it is too late to change his choices.

 

His choices seem irrelevant now. Lance was just another thorn in someone else’s side. A burden to be put upon shoulders. He can’t do this anymore, he can’t live up to people’s expectations, can’t stop himself from suffocating in this god forsaken town.

 

And he’s such a shitty driver, so of course people are going to think of this as an accident. No one really knows what Lance truly feels, no one cares. Their words were just flimsy promises and empty words. No one gave an actual crap about Lance. And why should they? What has Lance done for them? _God_ , sometimes he’s such an annoying hypocrite.

 

He gazes heavenwards into the sky. His tears drying on his rouge cheeks. The crying has stopped, Lance can’t feel anything but numbness. That’s good because things were starting to hurt too much.

 

A shooting star trails its fiery path across the darkness, and he whispers a wish. A quiet voice slipping through cracked lips.

 

He pauses.

 

Everytime a star falls, a shooting star is born. A wish is then made, but only at the cost of the star’s life. So, maybe, everytime someone wishes, everytime a wish is whispered, uttered into the cold air through chapped lips and cigarette smoke, through childish wonder and gapped teeth, a dream comes true, and something else falls.

 

He laughs quietly and then shakily lifts his arms to rest against his chest, hugging himself. The small quiet laughter breaks the silence, but that is the only sound he can make. His voice too feeble to go into hysterics. He hugs himself tighter, trying to keep himself warm despite the coldness seeping into his body, into his soul. His ribs creak brokenly and blood trails down in ribbons and puddles to the ground. Lance has dropped an hourglass before and it looked like this, except the sand was blood and time became meaningless.

 

His chuckles die down, smiling faintly to himself, wondering how many stars would die tonight. Who cares if one more light goes out in this sky of a million stars? Who really cares if someone else’s time runs out, just for someone else’s moment?

 

People say Lance’s light has gone, flickered into a dim light until disappearing completely.

 

Inhaling is becoming a exceedingly difficult task. The sound of cars rushing past him grow farther and farther away, the world slowly going out of focus like a camera dying, like a TV suddenly unplugged, or the stars slowly dimming each second.

 

Lance still doesn’t understand Newton’s Law of Motion, not completely. He still doesn’t get how it’s still stuck in his head despite Lance quite literally bleeding to death. People say your life flashes through your eyes when you’re dying. His doesn’t. He’s just looking at stupid stars. He has the inexplicable urge to get to his feet and leap up into the sky, chasing those dumb stars. It was his dream to redefine the world, to rewrite the stars. In this moment, he realizes what death really means. He won’t be able to catch the stars, to realign them, to create constellations of his own.

 

Isaac fucking Newton pops back into his mind. He doesn’t know why he’s pissed about this while he’s about to die. Inertia, force, mass, gravity, equal and opposite reactions still don’t fit together in his brain. It’s like a misplaced piece is forcing its way into his jigsaw puzzle of a mind.

 

And when it gets harder to open his eyes, so much so that even blinking hurts, he releases the need to understand, and everything falls into one realization.

 

Things are really not that fucking simple.

 

Every action is an interaction. Everything he has ever done has led to something else, into different moments, and then to another something else. All of it ends right here, at the bottom of a hill.

 

He feels himself pulling away. His life’s threads unraveling, snapping loose.

 

And then he closes his eyes.

 

And maybe, things might change for him.

 

.

.

.

 

Graduation is a blur of tears, unfound nostalgia, and fear. Four weeks later, so is Lance McClain’s funeral.

 

It’s weird to be reunited with his high school classmates again so early after the departure of each other. In those past four weeks, which have been more brutal than any weeks Keith can ever remember going through, he has already distanced himself away from his classmates so much. From their happy futures, their proud families, and their nitpicking over class schedules and roommate assignments. To be honest, high school was a fucking joke to Keith. He doesn’t understand why he even stayed.

 

He was not encouraged by anyone to do well in school, and he’s never even had the thought of college cross his mind. Shiro does though, tries to casually coax him into it because Keith is clever and smart enough to get a full ride scholarship to an elite school. But the thought makes him nauseous, the thought of trying to learn, to have good grades and become valedictorian, and to finish college with a degree that stood out above the rest. It makes him uncomfortable and anxious and depressed and Shiro sees that, and always drops the subject so hurriedly that sometimes Keith wonders if it hurts Shiro more than it hurts himself.

 

In high school, he’d always been an outcast among his peers. It was like trying to find what didn’t seem right in the picture, and that thing was Keith. Misplaced and misunderstood Keith. The short separation from his ex classmates only served to widen the chasm between them. He feels more out of place than ever in this sea of black suits and dresses. Keith doesn’t really know why he came, wearing an old thrifty suit that was so much bigger than him.

 

But more than anything, the thing that makes him so terrified of the future is proven by Lance McClain’s death. Obnoxiously happy, gangly-limbed, knobby knees, cinnamon and honey Lance. Lance who was clever, motivated and strong-willed, who had the determination of making something out of himself more than anyone in Garrison High: **Dead**.

 

There’s a heavy sense of depression residing in everyone. It’s a small town. Everyone knew the McClains, everyone knew who Lance was.

 

However, the terror of it all momentarily distracts him from everything. From the tangy iron taste on his tongue, the blackstorm whirling into his mind, the shaking of his closed fists, and the tightness growing in his stomach. The ache residing in his knuckles, his knees, and ankles against the complete and utter uncertainty of the situation.

 

From those past few weeks, those days of cleaning tables and of fixing cars, those weeks of trying to get by and survive on his own. The nights are always the hardest because he is alone, which is strange because he is very much used to being alone. Now he’s in a dingy apartment with electricity that comes in short, random bursts, due to the unpaid bills on his table. Keith is only nineteen years old, but he feels so much older than that.

 

He feels selfish for thinking about it when he is literally staring at Lance McClain’s closed casket.

 

It’s still something that sets Keith’s heart into a painful constriction.

 

They had been friends once. Before high school, before braces and acne and girls. Before the dumb rivalry that Lance made up. He is stuck in the memory of hitting the arcade and hanging around the park, laughing with gapped teeth and pure joy. He remembers the feeling of being anchored with Lance, something steady and tangible to grasp onto. Taking comfort in his red trainers and Transformers bandaids, knowing that he had Lance even when he felt like there was nothing to look forward to at all.

 

He aches for that little boy now. For his goofy smile and his biting remarks, for the way he used to tease his bowl haircut and force him to listen to his horrendous impressions of famous actors. The little boy who used to make him shitty mix tapes of early 2000s pop. The little boy who used to record home made videos.

 

The summer before high school there was an almost unmentionable shift that changed everything. It was about the time his father took a turn for the worse, about the time Keith started doing this on his own and started isolating himself away from others, and Lance was the last thing on his mind.

 

He doesn’t know what makes him drawn towards Lance. It’s odd. It’s scary.

 

“Fuck, what the hell was he even doing there?” Katie Holt asks, throat clogged with tears. He vaguely remembers her telling him to call her Pidge, which is still a bit too rusty on the tongue, but he can get used to it. Maybe.

 

Hunk is next to them, trying his best to console her, rubbing circles on her bony shoulder. Keith tightens his fists.

 

Keith doesn’t cry. He is too tired, too scared to have emotions spilling out of him. He keeps the grief at bay by just standing there helplessly, staring at the large family in front of him. Lance’s mother and too many siblings all cry in front of the casket. They’re not old enough to deal with this. Any of this, for that matter.

 

Actually, most of them are probably not old enough to handle it. Many of the people gathered were attending their very first funeral. It was definitely not Keith’s first time. It’s not the first time Keith has dealt with death. There’s a lot of lonely tears and harsh sobs in those isolated nights. Dad… He doesn’t like to dwell too much into that. The painful throbbing that forms into his chest is a constant reminder of that loss. The numbness that starts from his fingertips, then settling into toes. The ringing into his ears. He knows this feeling too much, but it’s been years since Dad passed away, so why is it coming back now?

 

There would always be something that connected him to those people he’s lost, a darkness, an uncertainty, some deep-seated longing for something that they could never quite place.

 

.

.

.

 

There is a reception somewhere, but Keith doesn't attend. He doesn't think he can stand talking to the other kids. Most of them are headed to college, or have jobs lined up, or families they can lean on until they know what they're doing. People who are different than Keith. Throwing excuses to his fellow newly graduated classmates, he leaves to go home.

 

But instead he finds himself in the park. _Their_ park. It was unlike its surroundings, buildings growing old and tired in neglect. The park seemed to not look any different from before. Just… old.

 

He makes his way over to the abandoned swing. Years ago, he had swung there, alone. It had been old even then. The chains made a quiet squeaking sound as they swung back and forth. It was an ancient swing with a splintered wooden seat, faded red paint peeling off in chips. None of the other children had liked it, but then no one had liked him either. He had been a strange child, quiet, intense, with a gaze that seemed to pierce through people. The chains were brittle as he took a tentative seat, wrapping his callused hands around them. Suddenly, he felt overwhelmed with emotion and tears prickled at his eyes. Alarmed, he wiped at them, but the feeling still remained.

 

“Fuck,” he curses, pushing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He takes a few low shuddery breaths. “Don’t cry, don’t cry.”

 

Keith bites his lip, gnawing the skin until it breaks into a small cut.

 

_“Hey!” someone yelled, a high-pitched voice. Keith looked up from the ground, eyes widening in surprise. “You’re sitting on my seat.”_

 

_“Your seat?” Keith asked tentatively. “... uh, I didn’t know someone owned this…”_

 

_The boy cocked his head to the side, scruffy brown hair and clearwater blue eyes blinking. He had looked wilder than all the other kids Keith had met. Freckles dotted all over his body, pink pouty lips lined with a blue tint from candy. There’s a band-aid stuck to his cheek. His fingers, just like Keith’s, are wrapped around in blue bandages. He looked like a confused puppy. “I haven’t seen you here before? And I know everyone in this town!”_

 

_“I just moved here,” Keith muttered feebly, shying away from the inquisitive stare._

 

_“Ooooh! We don’t get a lot of new people in this small town,” the boy said, grinning at him toothily. “Where are you from?”_

 

_“I’m from Mars,” Keith said, a little too proudly. As much as his little voice can crawl out from his mouth. “My mommy is from there. She’s a Martian.”_

 

_“Your mommy is a magician?” the boy said, shocked. “Can she pull rabbit out of her hat?”_

 

_“No,” Keith said, staring at him quizzically. “She’s a Martian. She’s an alien!”_

 

_The boy gasped. “Does that mean you’re an alien?”_

 

_“Yep! My daddy says so,” Keith said with a smile._

 

_“That’s so cool!” the boy said, “Is he an alien too?”_

 

_“No!” Keith said with a giggle. “He’s a furry.”_

 

_“A what?” He looked at Keith weirdly.  “What’s a furry?”_

 

_“It means a very hairy person,” Keith said, “He looks like a bear. Grizzly. Rawr.”_

 

_“Wow, so you’re half bear and alien?” the brown hair kid said, pouting. “That’s not fair.”_

 

_“Well, your eyes are blue,” Keith commented. “So you must be a mermaid?”_

 

_It was true. The skinny kid had a the bluest eyes Keith had ever seen in his life. It reminded him of clear skies of a sunny day or a blueberry ring pop._

 

_The boy seemed to consider his statement. “Hmmm, yeah. I guess I am! I love the ocean.”_

 

_“Now that’s awesome!” Keith said, gaping widely. “Oh! Um, my name’s Keith.”_

 

_It sounded a lot like ‘Keef’._

 

_“Right!” The blue eyed boy showed off his toothy grin. “I’m Lance!”_

 

_“Wanna be friends?” Lance asked, raising his hand in front of Keith._

 

_Keith smiled for the first time in a while. Connecting their hands together, and said, “Okay.”_

 

Keith sighed, running a hand down his hair in frustration. He was just sitting on a rickety old swing in a park where no one even came to anymore. He tilts his head backwards, staring at the sky, heavenwards. He grips on to the rusty metal chains, red crust tainting his hands.

 

_Lance barrelled into him, grinning like a mad man. Lance was all growing limbs and pointy elbows. He had something cradled against his chest. It looked like a grey bulky piece of plastic with stickers plastered all over it._

 

_“Look what I got!” Lance said, shoving the item to Keith’s face. The pen Keith is holding drops into the ground. He slams the paper into his chest, shielding it away from Lance’s excited eyes._

 

_“Is this a cam recorder?” Keith said, furrowing his eyebrows. “Hey, stop filming me!”_

 

_“No way, compandre! You’re the star of my show,” Lance exclaimed, zooming into Keith’s face. “Introducing Keith Kogane in Mundane Events of Suburbia. Or… maybe one of those stories you write? A screen adaptation of one Keith Kogane’s original works—!”_

 

_“Stop it, you idiot!” Keith protested, covering his face with his hands, trying to shield away from the camera. “I’m gonna look stupid!”_

 

_“You gotta embrace it then, darling!” Lance said with a laugh. “For realsies though, this is fun! Do you think I got a knack for Hollywood?”_

 

_“Yes, with your crappy personality and fake smile,” Keith said sardonically. “You’ll make it big for sure.”_

 

_“Thanks, Keithy-boy,” Lance said with a wry grin. “I knew you’d be my number one fan.”_

 

Keith swallowed the lump in his throat. Breathing was suddenly a really difficult task.

 

_They lie on the grass with weeds and flowers surrounding them. Their breath carrying out dandelion wishes. They float like tiny ghosts going higher, higher, and higher until they migle with  the clouds above them. Hands spread high above them, trying to give names to shapely wisps of white. Lance talks the most, mouth moving rapidly like he never stopped to breath. Lance’s other hand grasps Keith’s, palms together and fingers tangled as they gaze into the heavens. They wonder what lies beyond the sky._

 

_Lance knocks his shoulder against Keith’s, giving him a smirk. “I got you something.”_

 

_“What?” Keith says, his thoughts interrupted. “You… you got me something?”_

 

_“Yeah,” Lance says, grinning.  “I made you a mixtape.”_

 

_Lance drops a cassette onto Keith’s stomach._

 

_Something stirs in Keith’s chest. A dark blush forming on his cheeks. “You made me a mixtape?”_

 

_“Mullet, now you’re just repeating my words,” Lance says, rolling his eyes, albeit in a playful manner. “Of course, I’d make you one. You’re my friend.”_

 

_The words reverberated into Keith’s mind. He blinks._

 

_“You got that new Walkman, right?” Lance asked, bashfully. “Your dad got you one for you birthday. No one really makes mixtapes anymore, but… since you got the Mullet, might as well live up to the generation.”_

 

_This time, Keith rolled his eyes, “Of course you’d do something thoughtful and then insult me. Truly. I appreciate it.”_

 

_Lance’s shoulders slack, his smile dimming._

 

_“No, no, I mean it!” Keith sputtered. Grabbing Lance’s hand tightly. “I love it. Thank you.”_

 

_Lance grinned. “You’re welcome, Keithy-boy.”_

 

Keith’s not like that anymore. That boy left the moment his father died and when everything turned to shit. He’s nineteen and sometimes he feels like he’s thirty five.

 

Keith used to believe in things. Fate, destiny, power, responsibility. It sounds like something that came out of the Ten Commandments and those creeds. Keith had grown up all of his life believing in certain directions, and maybe Dad dying had served to seal the lid shut on that container. Tight. This is probably why Keith has some sort of morbid fatalistic humor.

 

This is where things started to fall apart because Lance used to marvel at chance, at probability, the idea of a chaotic world. The universe is sporadic. Certain things fall apart into place. There’s results. There is no order. No predetermined storyline.

 

_“I have to get out of here,” Lance said, frustrated. Throwing a pebble into the lake, it skips a few times. “I could do better than this stupid cow-dump of a town. I’m going to rewrite the stars. And no one’s going to control my destiny except me.”_

 

The earth is round, and gravity makes things fall, and Lance dies.

 

And things come back into clockwork, the world still spins, and Keith is sitting alone in an old park.

 

Maybe Lance had some sort of notion about the world.

 

.

.

.

 

When Keith wakes up, things are still depressingly the same.

 

The apartment is as quiet and hollow as it always is. When he wakes up he can feel it, lingering over his skin like dust – a shallow, barely there emptiness that has always lingered this haunted place.

 

He leans back, against the headboard, and closes his arms around himself, distractedly blowing the strands of hair that have fallen into his eyes up and out of the way. It’s an old studio apartment with one bathroom. He’s sleeping on the lumpy couch, permanent dip embedded on it from his weight, and a blanket strewn over him. Keith is still wearing his clothes from yesterday. A white dress shirt too big on him and a haphazardly loosened tie around his neck. The jacket is draped over by his feet.   


Despite all this, it still feels more like home than all the other houses he’s resided in. He has free reign in this place, he can do whatever, no matter how little or insignificant it is. It’s still Keith’s choice.

 

The letter is still on the kitchen table, where he got the news, and it still boggles him how they managed to track Keith down. The envelope is ripped, letter slightly crumpled where Keith fingers had unconsciously frozen in there action of curling into the paper.

 

He sighs, rubbing the back of his too-long hair. He should cut it, he doesn’t really have the money or budget to get it cut by a professional. Keith is devastatingly broke. His dad used to cut it for him, never really trusting Keith with scissors after that once incident with the kitchen knife. The sore reminder of that incident is still on his face. The scar over his brow where no hair can grow.

 

Keith has gained thousands of scars over the span of his nineteen years, since then. Most have faded in time, some are still residing deep in his bones. Wounds that cut deeper than skin, than any muscle tissue.

 

He stretches his body, arms raised above his head, joints popping, and he feels himself getting reattached. He swings his legs out of the couch, ready to start his mundane day. He heats up the stove and puts on a kettle of water. He doesn’t really trust the water the building provides, but Keith’s starving so he really doesn’t have anything else to go on.

 

While the water boils, Keith strips himself from his shirt, throwing it onto the pile next to the couch. He trudges into the bathroom. The desperate need to splash water onto his face.

 

Keith runs the water, hands cupped, and splashes it onto his face, the coolness sweeping over his dehydrated skin. He shakily looks into the mirror, breathing raggedly. Keith’s not gonna lie, he looks like a crackhead. His skin is pale enough for his veins to be visible from the translucency. He looks like a chipping porcelain doll, cracks spider-webbing around the smooth surface, lips chapped enough to draw out blood. The water dribbles past his chin, dripping down onto the skin of his neck. The sound is what brings him comfort. The soft pitter patter of water going down the drain. Like remnants of his old self shedding.

 

He doesn’t know what gets better than this life he’s living. For the longest time, he’s been wishing to make the pain go away and now he feels nothing. He doesn’t know if that’s any better.

 

He returns to table, plopping his ass down to the seat as he waits for the water to boil. He slides the paper towards him, flips it open, and reads the words over and over again. It still doesn’t seem so real.

 

_With a heavy heart, we would like to invite you to attend a funeral ceremony for our beloved son and brother, Lance Charles McClain. Please come and devote your sincerest sympathies and condolences. It would be truly great for you to come and bid your final goodbyes…_

 

The kettle screams, breaking his thoughts and nearly tossing the letter out into the window.

 

“Crap,” Keith mutters, clutching the paper to his chest. He shoves the letter under a mug, and goes to fetch the water and make himself some instant ramen. He checks the time on the wall clock and nearly wants to hit himself for being a complete idiot for forgetting he had work in less than an hour. He practically inhales the ramen, burning his tongue in the process, and then shoves the plastic container into the trash.

 

He hurriedly puts his hair up into a ponytail, kicks yesterday’s pants off and trades them for a pair of dark jeans with rips. It doesn’t matter if the rip grows in the size when he accidentally gets his foot stuck in the hole, he could pass it off as an aesthetic or something. He yanks out the dresser, dressing himself into a tank top and red flannel. He doesn’t bother to clean up the rest of his place and just books it out. Time means money. Money means food on the table.

 

And he doesn’t really have the time to grieve. It sets all the things out of balance for Keith.

  


.

.

.

  


The diner he works at is still the same one he and his father used to go and eat breakfast in. It’s an eighties themed space diner that fits some sort of Tumblr aesthetic. It’s why there’s too many pre-teens who hang around the taking photos with phones that Keith might cost more than Keith’s rent. He spots some of them lingering at the front, posing in squats or… dabs? Keith’s not too sure what exactly they’re doing. They look like his senile neighbor’s tacky curtains.

 

Anyhow, the place is bizarre, old, and smells like old tomato sauce. So do the uniforms. Clad in a unattractive purple polo and red apron, a baseball cap with _Coran’s_ printed on it in big blocky letters.

 

Keith’s just arrived in time to find Coran chatting up with a woman. He’s familiar with her. She’s tall and beautiful like she came out straight from a photoshoot. It’s Allura Altea with a high ponytail that looks like the fur of an arctic fox and a varsity jacket that has the words **ALTEA** on it. It’s not easy to forget a girl as ethereal looking as Allura, especially in a depressing town with a population of four thousand...well, four thousand minus one. Now that he’s going to that morbid train of thought, he didn’t see Allura in the funeral.

 

“Keith, m’boy! You’re just in time,” Coran exclaims. Keith’s swears to god that his moustache moved. He has a theory that it’s sentient.

 

“Keith? As in Keith Kogane?” Allura says in surprise, swiveling her head towards him. “I didn’t know you work here.”

 

Keith shrugs. “Pays the bills.”

 

“...You were in the funeral, right?” Allura says tentatively, biting her lip.

 

“Yeah,” he sighs out, as if he were holding a lengthy breath. “I was. I didn’t see you there.”

 

Which is still strange, considering he knows Allura used to be on the swim team with Lance. Watching them with their arm slinged over their shoulder, laughing at one of Lance’s god-awful pick-up lines, and basically ignoring Keith’s existence… or to be quite exact, Keith _trying_ to ignore their existence… specifically a certain brunette’s.

 

“I was in England when I heard the news,” Allura explains, tucking a stray strand of silver hair behind her pointy elvish ear. “I can’t… believe it.”

 

“I don’t think anybody does,” Keith confesses. “I don’t. It’s difficult to comprehend.”

 

This conversation is effectively putting a damper on everyone’s moods. Coran’s is the most noticeable when droops his shoulders and a shaky sigh escapes him.

 

“That boy had so much ahead of him, such a bright future,” Coran says, sniffling. “Who could have predicted an accident like that to happen? To someone like Lance?”

 

Keith doesn’t know what exactly happened. Just something about the rain pouring down hard, roads slick, and a hill.

 

“I don’t think this is the appropriate place to talk about it, Coran,” Allura says, wiping her eyes. “I need to visit his family later, to give my condolences.”

 

“I’ll accompany you, Princess,” Coran says, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I must say my own as well.”

 

And Keith just stands there awkwardly. He doesn’t really know what to say. So he just leaves them as if he were never there, slipping out like a ghost.

 

.

.

.

 

The day flits by uneventfully, his shift is done, and he’s coming back to his shitty apartment. The car he drives is something he bought from the internet and his highschool savings. It’s relatively a good car, just overheats a lot and breaks down from time to time, but whatever makes walks shorter and less annoying. Keith really doesn’t like interacting with people.

 

When Keith bought the car, there was a cassette player installed. He doesn’t mind it. He never really uses it. He doesn’t know who else makes cassette other than hipsters or old neighbors, but that doesn’t stop him from reaching over to the glove compartment, and rummaging through it to find a particular cassette that has “ **_Keith’s Lit Playlist_ ** ” sloppily written on its plastic.

 

He pushes it into the player and waits.

 

_“Asking you to stay. The words are finally here. Let's rewind, and rewind...”_

 

Keith can feel the small smile on his lips.

 

He reclines back, dropping his head to the back, neck strained, and just watching the sun disappear into the horizon. The sky casted a warm golden right around the area. He marveled at the beautiful red and orange colors of a sunrise or sunset. Felt the warmth through the open windows.

 

_“You see, you're the only star in the film I never made. Would you rewind it all the time. Rewind it all the time…”_

 

The gradient colors of the sun and intensity of its light were enough to calm his soul momentarily. The sun was just a big ball of romantic reds and oranges, like some kind of big inspirational flame.

 

It soon died down into earth, melting away the saturated colors into darkness. Stars winking out in the distance. There he watches for what seems like hours at the black sky, gazing at its white specks, trying to form constellations. He’s slowly drifting to sleep, familiar words echoes into his mind.

 

Then something shoots past the sky, breaking his concentration.

 

_“Do we make it to the sequel? Second chance for our survival Oh we all need a hallmark ending and a change of heart…”_

 

Then something else echoes into his head, a familiar voice from a memory.

 

_Everytime a star falls, a shooting star is born. A wish is then made, but only at the cost of the star’s life._

 

Keith gasps as he watches the star tearing a sparkling path to the sky. Keith closes his eyes shut and he can’t believe he’s doing this… he **wishes**.

 

He grabs a piece of paper from the glove compartment—It doesn’t matter if its an old flyer from a car insurance company— and begins to write.

 

_“I'm asking you to stay. The words are finally here. So let's rewind. Would you rewind it all the time. Oh, you're the only star in the film I never made…”_

  


.

.

.

  


Keith wakes up with a loud yawn, stretching his body. The apartment is as quiet and hollow as it always is. When he wakes up he can feel it, lingering over his skin like dust – a shallow, barely there emptiness that has always lingered this haunted place.

When he gets ready to go to work, he trips over something. The sound of paper crumpling under his shoes. He looks down to find a pile of letters on the floor. Keith doesn’t get mail too often unless they are unpaid bills or letters from Shiro, but it’s still strange to find _so many_ of them especially if they are addressed to him. He picks one from the pile. The words “ **_letter one”_ ** written in big bold letters. It has his name on a very familiar handwriting. He rips it open to find a mammoth of text written on it. The first words pique his interest already and he continues to read them with wide eyes. The words are too detailed to be an ordinary prank letter that maybe Lance could have done, but what scares him is that it was his own handwriting. The familiar chicken scratch and harsh pressing of some letters.

  
  


_Hello, Keith_

_This is you from the future. I want you to go find Lance McClain and be his friend. Today you will meet him for the very first time since you left high school. The following things will happen..._

He reads the letter again, and again, and again. The words burning into his mind. It's his handwriting, it definitely is, which makes everything so foreboding and ominous. Especially when his eyes land on the end of the lengthy and detailed paragraphs that will describe the day like an overly done grocery list. His breaths comes to a stop as he reads the last line. Repeatedly.

 

_And … I want you to save Lance McClain._

  


**Author's Note:**

> Well, that happened. Leave a comment and some kudos.


End file.
